


Bad Drinks, Birds, and Thursdays

by gigiree



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grocery Store, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because she has terrible taste in alcohol and a coffee fueled rant might suit her better than an alcohol induced sob. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Drinks, Birds, and Thursdays

She comes in every Thursday evening, just around 5:17 PM. A time as nondescript as the black apron he wears while working and just as bland. **  
**

 _‘It’s jes’ Thursday_.’ he tells himself. It’s just the day after Wednesday and the day when he gets to guess what else is new in her life.

Last week it had been that nasty boxed wine that costs real cheap.

This week it seems she’s decided on a slightly more expensive pack of terrible tasting beers.

_‘Bad taste in drinks, that one.’_

He rings it up in complete silence, stifling the derisive laughter curling in his chest, just ready to leap out and mock this pretty, pretty princess with the dark makeup, the red rum lips, and the golden glare. He feels it welling up, boiling, thrumming,spitefully keeping in time with the click clack of the shiny black heels peeking out from under her gray slacks..

His derision writhes, a stinging kind of resentment mixes with latent self-pity, and it tastes so bitter that he just has to open his big fat mouth and ask-

“What’s got ye so down, Princess?”

And then he instantly regrets it because she rises. Her spine straightens and the fine tailoring of her white blouse is made clear when she rises just so. Her chin is lifted, the corners of her mouth turn down, and she wrinkles her nose as if she’s just caught a whiff of his ever present bitterness.

Tiny hands ball up into fists that can take on the world, white knuckled, delicate, precise.

She puts her thumbs under her curled fingers, and it’s then he knows that she’s no stranger to the old one, two.

There’s vindication in his answering sneer, a spark of welcome to the challenge she is about to offer, and because Marianne recognizes kindred spirits fairly easily, she takes a deep breath and gives a smile more reminiscent of a grimace.

“You know…the nice thing about sadness is that there’s no discrimination, Mr-”

She pauses momentarily to take a quick glance at his name tag.

“Mr. Booog?”

She draws out the o, adds a little lilt to the end of it and makes his name a question. It’s the first time he’s spoken to her since she first walked in three weeks ago. And it’s the first time she’s actually looked at his nametag and given him more than just a grunt of acknowledgement.

“Bog.” He reiterates.

“Bog.” She echoes. “Bog.”

And it’s one syllable that’s rightly uncommon on her tongue. It’s a roundish thing, rough and direct and a little lonely with no other syllables to accompany it. She rolls it around, and wistfully notes that it will never sound right with her voice and without his slight brogue. She wonders if perhaps he could make even her name, regular old Marianne, sound as nice and full as he does with his own.

There’s only one way to find out, and so she simply says-

“Marianne.”

He seems to take a moment to consider this, glances at her with those really blue eyes of his and replies-.

“Marianne. Pleasure to meet ye. ”

She flushes, because she hates the thrill that rushes through her at the sound of her name. The first syllable is delightfully shortened, quick and to the point. The _r_  is curved delightfully behind the edge of his teeth, and the rest of it becomes lost in the torrent of sounds he shapes so nicely.

And then just like that, her tiny thrill is done, and Bog is back to ringing up her purchase and telling her the total. She swipes her credit card and signs the receipt all without a word. He hands her the paper bag, the six pack clinking cheerily with his rough handling. It’s just Thursday after all, completely routine.

But then again, they’ve never spoken a word, and somehow now that the princess has a name and the lanky cashier has a great way of saying it, it’s not routine anymore.

“Be careful.”

He’s not sure if he means to warn her about the dangers of glass bottles, the dangers of alcohol, or the dangers of life.

“Thanks…Mr. Boooog.”

And she’s not sure if she’s thanking him for his service, his acquaintance or his nice accent.

She sticks out her tongue, mischief and play aglow in her gaze. And before he has time to respond, she’s out the door and into the bustling city street, the bell tinkling merrily behind her.

“It’s Bog,” he corrects, but she’s not there to hear it and it’s not as terse as the first time.

* * *

 

‘It’s just Thursday.’  She tells herself. It’s a day as normal as Netflix on Fridays with Dawn and as boring as afternoon tea with Aunt Aura.

Yet she finds herself stalling around the brick laden corner of the little liquor store staffed by one Bog. He can’t see her here, but she’s pressing tiny hands over her heart, trying to quell the quick beating of a crazy lub dub.

Before she can make up her mind, there’s a familiar buzzing from her small black purse. She pulls it from where it rests against her hip, and rummages until she finds the very old flip phone that’s her only means of contact as of now.

The name on the screen arrests her nervous haze, plunging her into the strangest sensations of icy numbness and searing anger.

Stupid Cheating Cockroach Ex flashes on the screen and her phone keeps vibrating, despairingly annoying and depressingly constant. She rejects the call with a fierce push of a button, and stifles a shriek when the key on the number pad pops off with the force of it.

Her phone buzzes again, this time it’s a text message.

_“Hey darlin’, can I have that silver bracelet back…I wanna give it to Belinda for our first month together.”_

_-Roland_

* * *

 

Marianne’s arrival is anything but normal this Thursday. It’s punctuated by a slamming door and the near indignant ringing of the bell. The clock ticks slowly, marking the time as 5:25 PM.

Bog says nothing, merely glances with slight worry and hesitancy when she grabs a handle of Green apple flavored vodka by the neck, her grip tight and her teeth grit.

Her face is pale and there are dark circles and bags under her eyes that even her makeup cannot hide. She looks disheveled…sad and angry and the emotions flit openly across her pretty face in quick succession, fluttering like cards in a deck.

He wants to ask what’s wrong. He wants to tell her that that vodka tastes like fermented mouthwash and that it’s too pricey for the quality. He wants to call her name and say hello and pay her back in kind for last week’s teasing. He wants to give advice, because he knows heartbreak and she’s been on this downward bender far too long for someone with her fire, but he says nothing because it’s not routine.

But his mother raised her son right and it’s her grating voice that echoes in the throes of his thoughts when he blurts out-

“Ye have a couple birds o’ sadness nesting in that hair of yers.”

“Huh?!”

Worriedly and absurdly, she uses the hand not holding her vodka to brush through the short feathery strands brushing her forehead.

“Errm…”

He gestures a bit wildly overhead, making little flapping movements with his fingers to imitate a bird’s wings.

“It’s jes’ a saying. Ye can’t keep ‘em from flying over head, but ye can keep ‘em from nesting.”

She tilts her head slightly, curiosity and sadness and bemusement mixing quite nicely in her eyes.

“Is that so?”

He scratches a bit awkwardly at his scruffy beard, eyes rolling towards the cracked ceiling in embarrassment.

“Can I chase them out?” She asks suddenly, and it’s a quiet request, melancholy and soft and golden.

“Ahh…sure.”

But Bog is unsure, because he is not a bosom friend or a sensitive soul or a shoulder to cry on. He’s used to burying his problems and then digging them up again to gnaw on like an old bone when he’s alone. His birds of sadness are numerous and nesting too, but he finds them too entangled into his unkempt locks to do much about.

He listens though. He hears her and understands and can’t really come up with the right words, but his occasional grunts are all that are needed to egg her on to her story. And it’s enough for now that she only mentions an ex-fiance who cheated on her and still has a majority of her things. And it’s enough for now that she pulls out her old flip phone and laughs bitterly because she had thrown her nice, new smart phone into the ocean after the incident. And it’s enough for now that he was able to, with his long and knobby fingers, to expertly press the fallen button back into place.

And it’s also enough that he tells her about the girl he loved and how it didn’t work out in the end because she loved another.

It’s enough because Marianne is lighter at the end of it all, and the sun has set, and the store is empty. The clock ticks 7:34 PM, and Marianne panics because it is Thursday after all and she has work tomorrow.

“Thanks Bog.”

“Yer uhh…it’s fine.”

“And Bog?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope one day we can get those birds of sadness out from your bushy brows too.”

“Hn.”

She forgets to take the vodka with her.

And he’s glad she’s spared another round of gross tasting beverages.

* * *

 

It’s the next Thursday that she shows up, red cheeks aflame and white blouse untucked from dark slacks. Her hair is windblown and there’s something akin to lava blazing deep in her brown eyes. Her heels click against the linoleum, a staccato beat keeping in time with the ticking of the clock that marks 5:00 PM.

“THAT BASTARD!”

And Bog is loathe to admit that his heart nearly stopped because she is _glorious_ and her entrance scared him.

“Marianne?”

He’s hesitant again and it’s in his rough brogue and gentle eyes and the way his knobby fingers are raised up in front of him like a child that tells her all she needs to know about this gangly cashier with the nice blue eyes and the good listening skills.

Determination lights her way as she pulls him by the front of his apron down to her level, and a slightly manic smile stretches across her face and it softens when she sees he is flustered and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down with his thick swallow.

“Sorry, but is it okay if I kiss you?” She asks. And it’s a request as soft and melancholy and golden as her first.

He nods slowly, because she is lava and he likes her fire and wants nothing more than to be burned by her flames.

It’s quick. Staccato and straightforward, a bit awkward because his beaky nose gets in the way and the height difference is a bit much. But it’s nice.

Her lips are sweet with flavored plum color. His cheap cologne has worn off just enough to make it smell pleasantly faint. His scruffy beard is a little scratchy, but it feels real and raw and ….routine.

It’s a brief moment, strange in its comfort and quite unexpectedly welcome.

When they pull apart, his brows are raised high and Marianne wonders if she’s succeeded in chasing away some birds of sadness and made them light enough to rise again.

 _‘Silly thoughts for silly circumstances’_ , she muses.

And yet, there is nothing really silly about this at all, because her heart beats fast and so does his, and they both realize that this routine has become something they would very much like to keep.

But Bog is awkward and Marianne is artless, and she pulls out a wedding invitation with her ex-fiance’s name embossed in gold and Belinda’s in silver.

“He’s uh…getting married. Belinda’s expecting.”

“Oh…are ye, okay?”

She pauses to consider, and her lips still tingle from where his kiss rubbed them soft and she finds that she’s decidedly a lot more normal than she was when she first came in and bought that nasty boxed wine. And she knows it’s all Bog’s fault.

“I…I think I need a drink.”

The realization that Bog is responsible for this normality is a bit reeling, and she clicks her way hastily to the aisle in the back where there’s an abundance of alcohol to ease her epiphany.

He groans when he sees she’s picked up a handle of tequila, and stops midway in ringing it up, decisiveness making him say-

“I think a coffee-feuled rant might suit you better than an alcohol-induced sob.”

She blinks prettily and a slow smile crosses her face.

“Why Mr. Boooog, are you asking me out?”

“Of course. I think I still have a few o’ those damned birds nesting in my hair.”

“Okay then…when?”

His answering grin is cheeky, hidden behind the scruff of his beard and the furrowing of his brow.

“Next Thursday, same time as usual.”

And it’s a bit of a relief for the both of them that happiness has no discrimination either.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote about the birds of sadness is from the book "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech.


End file.
